Nakam

Dina Porat's "Nakam: The Holocaust Survivors Who Sought Full-Scale Revenge" presents a deeply researched examination of one of the most controversial and least-known chapters in post-Holocaust history. The book chronicles the activities of a group of Jewish survivors who, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, planned and partially executed acts of vengeance against Germans and former Nazis. Porat, a distinguished historian and chief historian at Yad Vashem, brings scholarly rigor to a subject that has long existed in the shadows of Holocaust historiography.

The narrative centers on a clandestine organization known as Nakam, which translates to "vengeance" in Hebrew. Led by Abba Kovner, a former partisan fighter and poet who had survived the Vilna Ghetto, the group formed in 1945 with the explicit goal of exacting retribution for the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. The members of Nakam were not interested in legal proceedings or the measured justice that would later be dispensed at Nuremberg. Instead, they sought what they considered proportional revenge, planning operations that would have resulted in mass German casualties.

Porat meticulously documents the two primary plans conceived by the group. The first, known as Plan A, was extraordinarily ambitious and chilling in its scope. The survivors intended to poison the water supply of major German cities, potentially killing millions of German civilians. The second, Plan B, focused on poisoning SS prisoners held in American internment camps. While Plan A never came to fruition, Plan B was partially executed in April 1946 at the Langwasser internment camp near Nuremberg, where members of Nakam poisoned bread intended for SS prisoners. Though the operation resulted in illness among approximately two thousand inmates, no deaths were confirmed.

The author draws extensively from archives, testimonies, and interviews with surviving members of the group, providing readers with detailed insights into the psychological and moral landscape these survivors inhabited. Porat does not shy away from the ethical complexities inherent in her subject matter. She presents the actions and plans of Nakam within the context of the unimaginable trauma these individuals had experienced, while also allowing readers to grapple with the moral questions raised by their chosen path.

One of the book's significant contributions is its exploration of how the Nakam members justified their actions to themselves and to history. These were individuals who had witnessed the complete destruction of their communities, families, and way of life. Many had participated in armed resistance during the war, and the transition from fighting Nazis during the Holocaust to seeking revenge afterward seemed, to them, a natural continuation of their struggle. Porat presents their reasoning without endorsing it, maintaining the scholarly distance necessary for historical analysis while acknowledging the profound suffering that motivated their actions.

The book also examines why the plans ultimately failed or were abandoned. Kovner's arrest by British authorities while attempting to transport poison, internal disagreements within the group, and the practical difficulties of executing such ambitious operations all played roles. Additionally, Porat explores how some members eventually came to question whether mass revenge was the appropriate response, and how others moved toward supporting the establishment of a Jewish state as a more constructive answer to Jewish vulnerability.

Porat's research sheds light on the broader context of Jewish life in the immediate post-war period, known as the She'erith Hapletah, or "surviving remnant." The book illustrates the chaos, displacement, and profound disillusionment that characterized this era. Many survivors found themselves in displaced persons camps, uncertain about their futures and grappling with losses that defied comprehension. The existence of groups like Nakam, while extreme, reflected a wider crisis of faith in justice and humanity that pervaded survivor communities.

The narrative raises profound questions about justice, revenge, and the limits of human response to atrocity. While the international community was establishing legal frameworks for prosecuting war crimes, these survivors felt such mechanisms were inadequate to address the scale of Nazi crimes. Their story challenges readers to consider what constitutes appropriate justice in the face of genocide and whether legal proceedings can ever truly satisfy the human need for accountability after such massive violence.

Porat's work stands as an important contribution to Holocaust studies, bringing to light a chapter that many participants kept secret for decades. The book neither glorifies nor condemns its subjects but rather presents their story as part of the complex tapestry of Holocaust memory and survival. For anyone seeking to understand the full spectrum of Jewish responses to the Holocaust and its aftermath, this meticulously researched volume offers essential and thought-provoking reading.